One area that was scrutinized was: package merge. It was discovered that the existing package merge algorithm could result in infinite looping if users incorrectly created circular dependencies on packages or if the resulting merge resulted in circular inheritance chains. The code was made more robust by detecting such cycles and stopping in such cases. This will have impact on users wishing to create DSL's using package merge concepts.

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Fixes include:

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* [https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=228754 Bug 228754] UML models do not open properly if there is a circular inheritance chain

See the [http://www.eclipse.org/modeling/mdt/news/relnotes.php?project=uml2tools&version=0.8.0RC1 UML2Tools 0.8 RC1 release notes] for details.

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=== Release 0.8 M7 ===

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==== UML2Tools preferences regrouping ====

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UML2Tools preferences pages were moved into common root 'UML2 Diagrams' ([https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=226663 Bug 226663]).

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[[Image:UML2Tools_PreferencesPages.jpg]]

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==== Diagram file extension ====

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Diagrams are created in file with shorter extension ([https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=230873 Bug 230873]):

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:*Class diagram: .umlclass

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:*Component: .umlcomp

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:*Deployment: .umldepl

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:*Composite Structures: .umlcsd

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:*Use Case: .umlusc

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:*Activity: .umlact

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:*State Machine: .umlstm

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All those changes are backward compatible -- we are processing old diagram files correctly, but all new diagrams are created with short extensions.

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==== Operation Parameters====

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Dialog to edit operation parameters was added to the context menu of operations. The dialog allow the users to create, remove, reorganize parameters as well as to edit their properties (([https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=210246 Bug 210246])).

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[[Image:UML2Tools_OperationParameter.jpg]]

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==== Extended property sheets====

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UML2Tools used drop-down lists for editing single-valued references in property sheets before. This is default implementation provided by UML2. The cell editor was extended by using Tree Editor in addition to existing drop-down list ([https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=228478 Bug 228478]).

UML2 specification contains examples of Provided/Required interfaces links from Port. These are derived features, their values are calculated in Port#getProvideds()/getRequireds() methods. Say, the set of provided interfaces of the port is defined by the set of interfaces implemented by port's type classifier. Thus creation of the link on diagram is not related to port itself, but should modify the typing classifier of this port or one of its super-classes.

Association Class is created by using 'Association Class' palette entry from the Nodes group. It's shown as a classifier rectangle, rhombus and link connector between them. So, only its classifier properties are shown after creation. In order to show it's association properties association ends should be created. 'Association End' palette entry from the Link group is used to create ends. On the example picture Association Class Job has two Association Ends - Person and Company.

Release 1.2 M6

A few small-ish improvements are made in this milestone, along with a number of bug fixes.

Improved Collection Flattening

The intent of collection flattening in the OCL 2.0 Specification is to produce collections in the same form as OCL 1.x, in which collections could not nest. OCL 2.0 does allow collections to contain
other collections, so the flatten() operation is provided to reduce a nested structure to a flat collection.

Through the 1.1 release, the flatten() implementation in MDT OCL has been incorrect: only the first level of nesting is flattened. A
Set(Set(Set(Apple))) would be reduced to a
Bag(Set(Apple)) instead of a
Bag(Apple). This is corrected by
bug 217461. After all, a partially-flattened collection isn't
really of any use at all.

Implementing an EValidator

The OCL.uml model was updated to add all of the well-formedness
constraints specified by OCL for the Types and Expressions packages of the Abstract Syntax.
These are documented using the OCL expressions included in the OCL 2.0 Specification. From these constraint specifications, the
TypesValidator and ExpressionsValidator
are generated as per the EMF validation framework.

This provided the basis for resolving two bugs in the Ecore binding plug-in:

bug 213936 for validation extensibility (the currrent visitor design is not extensible) and

bug 213096 to override the ENamedElement::WellFormedName constraint from Ecore, which doesn't apply to OCL.

The latter is accomplished by overriding the inherited constraints in an
EcoreValidator generated in the OCL binding for Ecore.

The well-formedness rules implemented in the ValidationVisitor are not yet ported to the new validators. This is planned for the next milestone, in
bug 224731.

Other Bug Fixes

Release 1.2 M5

Release 1.2 M4

This was not an ambitious milestone, for the most part simply fixing defects and making one or two small enhancements.
A few changes are worth noting because of their impact on API and, in some cases, compatibility with the 1.1 release.

Disposing OCL Environments

A new disposal API is defined for the
OCL façade
that does whatever is necessary to "clean up" the objects created by the parser, such as constraints, collection types, and
variables. More specifically, disposing an OCL instance currently does the following:

if the resource in which the environment (variables, collection types, etc.) is persisted was created by the environment and not by a client (to load an existing environment), then that resource is unloaded

all Constraints that are not contained in a resource have their adapter lists cleared, recursively over their contents

These measures are particularly important for the UML metamodel binding. In the course of parsing and evaluating OCL expressions, the UML2 API's
CacheAdapter
will become attached to constraints and other objects created by the parser. It is important that this adapter be removed again from any object that is no longer in use, because otherwise it will retain that object indefinitely (the
CacheAdapter is a singleton).

Additional Look-up Exceptions

Two specializations of the LookupException are added to distinguish between ambiguous look-ups and
invalid look-ups. The
AmbiguousLookupException
signals a look-up that resulted in multiple matches that the parser cannot distinguish and the
InvalidLookupException
signals a look-up that resulted in an unambiguous match that is of the wrong metatype than what is required. For example,
a qualified-name look-up for a Classifier or a QVT Transformation might
find a Package instead of an instance of the expected metatype.

The Ecore and UML implementations of the Environment are updated to throw these more specific exception types.

Changes in Parsing Behaviour

Two further changes were implemented in the OCL parser's behaviour that have an impact on compatibility with the 1.1 release.
These address
Bug 197396 and
Bug 212804.
The former improves the parser's compliance with the OCL specification of definition constraints; compatibility with the 1.1 release is available by enabling the
ParsingOptions::DEFINITION_CONSTRAINS_FEATURE option. The latter eliminates an obsolete mapping of the relational operators
(< <= >= >) to the Java-ish compareTo() operation; compatibility with the 1.1 release is available by enabling the
ParsingOptions::USE_COMPARE_TO_OPERATION option.

Other Bug Fixes

Release 1.2 M3

OCL Grammar and Parser API Refactoring

This milestone delivers the long-awaited refactoring of the OCL LPG grammar and associated parser API, contributed by Ed Willink from the GMT project's UMLX component.

The major new API in this contribution is defined in the org.eclipse.ocl.lpg and
org.eclipse.ocl.parser packages.
Included is an implementation of an EssentialOCL grammar (EssentialOCL.g) which is included in the full grammar (OCLParser.g). The former OCLParser class (which was internal) is refactored to separate the concrete syntax and abstract syntax parsing phases, implemented by the public classes
OCLParser and
[1] OCLAnalyzer, respectively.

Abstract LPG-parsing API is provided by the org.eclipse.ocl.lpg package, with abstract definitions of
lexers,
parsers, and
analyzers. These are accompanied by a BasicEnvironment interface that provides core services such as a new pluggable ProblemHandler for flexible reporting of parsing/analysis problems.

Navigation of Unnamed Association Ends

The UML metamodel binding now supports parsing and evaluation of OCL expressions that navigate unnamed association ends. The OCL convention for unnamed ends defines an implicit name which is the name of the classifier at that end with the initial letter in lower case. MDT OCL supports evaluation of such navigation expressions, where the implicit end name is unambiguous, on:

Other New API

As part of the refactoring of the parser API, this milestone introduces some new optional interfaces that environments may choose to implement. To maintain API compatibility, OCL employs an optional
Adaptable interface similar to Eclipse Platform's IAdaptable that is available is stand-alone deployments. The
OCLUtil class provides utilities
to obtain adapters from parsing and evaluation environments for these optional interfaces.

One noteworthy new optional interface is
Customizable, which
defines a protocol for customizing the parsing and evaluation of OCL constraints via
Options. Parsing options available so far include:

ProblemOption, an enumeration of parsing problems for which clients can choose the severity (reported as Diagnostics or as ParserExceptions

Other Bug Fixes

OCL Tools is a recently added component to the
Model Development Tools (MDT) Project
aiming at providing first-class support to modelers
working with specifications containing expressions written in OCL, the
Object Constraint Language. Such support
includes editing, refactoring, code generation, execution, and
interactive debugging of the OCL constraints given for some underlying
(Ecore or UML2) class model. The functionality of OCL Tools builds upon
the MDT OCL component, and has been seeded with two initial
contributions:

an OCL -> Java compiler, that as of now takes as input an
.ecore and a textual file containing OCL constraints (handling UML2 is
in the ToDo list). This compiler extends EMF code generation, producing
Java 5 source code with side-effects-free methods for the given OCL
invariants, pre- and postconditions, and derived attributes and
operations.

an OCL text editor, supporting usability features such as
AutoCompletion, navigation by means of hyperlinks, structured views
(for the outline of a document and for the Abstract Syntax Tree of an
OCL constraint), among others. Although MDT OCL itself is completely
fluent in both Ecore and UML2, only the Ecore binding is supported by
the OCL text editor at this time.

Release 2.2 M7

The M7 milestone focused mainly on bug fixing.

One area that was scrutinized was: package merge. It was discovered that the existing package merge algorithm could result in infinite looping if users incorrectly created circular dependencies on packages or if the resulting merge resulted in circular inheritance chains. The code was made more robust by detecting such cycles and stopping in such cases. This will have impact on users wishing to create DSL's using package merge concepts.

Fixes include:

Bug 228754 UML models do not open properly if there is a circular inheritance chain

Release 2.2 M4

This milestone consisted mostly of fixing some defects and making few small enhancements.
A few changes are worth noting.

Code template changes

The Javadoc for the UML2 API now contains information about subsetting and redefinition. Such information is useful when trying to navigate the maze of properties and how the UML meta-model is put together.

For example, Package::nestedPackage subsets Package::packagedElement

Profile registry

A new profile registry has been added making the discovery of profiles easier.

All those changes are backward compatible -- we are processing old diagram files correctly, but all new diagrams are created with short extensions.

Operation Parameters

Dialog to edit operation parameters was added to the context menu of operations. The dialog allow the users to create, remove, reorganize parameters as well as to edit their properties ((Bug 210246)).

Extended property sheets

UML2Tools used drop-down lists for editing single-valued references in property sheets before. This is default implementation provided by UML2. The cell editor was extended by using Tree Editor in addition to existing drop-down list (Bug 228478).

Release 0.8 M6

New elements added

UML2 specification contains examples of Provided/Required interfaces links from Port. These are derived features, their values are calculated in Port#getProvideds()/getRequireds() methods. Say, the set of provided interfaces of the port is defined by the set of interfaces implemented by port's type classifier. Thus creation of the link on diagram is not related to port itself, but should modify the typing classifier of this port or one of its super-classes.

Usability issues

This feature considers Required/Provided Interface links, that were mentions above. One Required Interface link can be shown on the diagram several times - the Genuine(original) going out of
Classifier and Derived, which is got by Port#getRequireds(), going out of Port.
Preferences page 'View Filters' is aimed to manage visibility of such links:

Deployment diagram added

New elements added

Association Class is created by using 'Association Class' palette entry from the Nodes group. It's shown as a classifier rectangle, rhombus and link connector between them. So, only its classifier properties are shown after creation. In order to show it's association properties association ends should be created. 'Association End' palette entry from the Link group is used to create ends. On the example picture Association Class Job has two Association Ends - Person and Company.